


love me when i’m low

by colourfulangstling



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec Lightwood Deserves Nice Things, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Alec Lightwood, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Protective Magnus Bane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 02:01:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30098601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colourfulangstling/pseuds/colourfulangstling
Summary: A patrol has a mission gone sideways, Alec takes it out on himself but Magnus is there to talk him through it.thanks to slyvir and violetlieutenant for betaing! this wouldn’t be anywhere near where it is now, so thank you <3this is my first fic, ever and i hope you enjoy it.
Relationships: Magnus Bane & Alec Lightwood, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 21
Kudos: 49





	love me when i’m low

**Author's Note:**

> A patrol has a mission gone sideways, Alec takes it out on himself but Magnus is there to talk him through it. 
> 
> thanks to slyvir and violetlieutenant for betaing! this wouldn’t be anywhere near where it is now, so thank you <3
> 
> this is my first fic, ever and i hope you enjoy it.

Alec Lightwood was intimately familiar with the training room of the New York Institute. It was a room that he frequented often, either to spar with Jace, train newly recruited transfers. To blow off steam on a rough day.  It was a room he found himself frequenting more often than not under the cover of night, when the Institute was rarely abuzz with movement, interchangeable patrols trudging in and out, either to the tranquil escape of sleep or to the streets of New York, ready to banish the demons as they arose. 

As Head, Alec had retired more to his office, only attending patrols when they absolutely needed him. So no one would notice if he found himself in the training room, burning away the day’s frustrations, those frustrations that had been weighing on him for most of his life. Burdens that - if he was being honest - had been taxing on every moment of his being, bone deep and stubborn and always  _ there.  _ But this patrol, he’d allowed himself to go on. This patrol  _ he  _ had authorised. 

On this patrol, someone had almost  _ died.  _

So, Alec felt that he could allow himself this release, to break down to the rawest parts of himself, to strip himself bare of the façade that he kept up in front of his people, his family, and indulge in this one thing that could quieten his mind. He  _ knew _ that there was something wrong in it. In relishing the cold burn that came with the bowstring snapping back onto calloused palms. Rough leather under his knuckles as his hands connected with a punching bag again and again and again. 

He knows it wasn’t always like this. Before Jace, before the standards were raised impossibly high and he was made lesser in his parents’ iron eye. He was almost happy, he was normal.

As normal as it could get for a gay nephilim, married to one of the most powerful warlocks on this and is now head of one of the biggest institutes in the  _ world _ . A feat that he would never have thought himself capable of accomplishing.

Oh, how things have changed. 

Alec stalks into the training room, angling for his bow and arrow, when the punching bag catches his eye instead. Peeling off the black t-shirt, he feels like he can breathe and just the removal of the material feels like a small weight lifted off of his shoulders. Rolling his muscles, he briefly considers activating some runes, before deciding against it. He doesn’t need them. Doesn’t deserve them. 

No. He needs to  _ feel  _ the burn of it, needs it to quiet the thoughts that run rampant and unrelenting. Ignoring the soreness of his muscles, Alec limps over to the bench, placing his shirt on it.

Because today has  _ not _ been a good day. Today he made a choice and it almost cost a life, a new recruit and he should have known  _ better _ .

The tape and gauze stare holes into Alec, taunting him to wrap his hands and he just knows that his knuckles are going to be crying for it later. 

He pays no mind to it, and instead ignores them on the bench, quickly striding towards the worn brown punching bag that has taken the brunt of many of his frustrations. 

Alec is more than aware of the fact that his Institute is semi-sentient and, more often than not, tries to conceal the location of the training room from him, to conceal the location of his bow and quiver from him, in futile attempts to stop him, to do anything to try and help him. Alec's too stubborn like this, too emotional to let  _ anything _ get in his way.

And he ends up in the training room. 

His fist connecting with the leather results in a resounding thud echoing through the empty training area. He’s light on his feet, hyper-vigilant. From the sweat beading on his brow, each panting breath that he expels from his lungs, each breath that he struggles to pull back in. He feels the muscles contort in his back as he prepares to attack again, feels tears harshly stinging the back of his eyes that he  _ will not _ allow to fall. 

To the unskilled eye, Alec's just training and the shadowhunters of the New York Institute know better than to interrupt, but it's in the little details. It's in the rapid pulse on his neck, hard eyes and pursed lips, miniscule expressions of his agony, his guilt.  And he thinks it well-deserved too, the fact all the more apparent with the image of the wide gash running through the limp shadowhunter’s body rises unbidden through his mind, providing truth to his self-accusations. A shadowhunter that he was meant to be protecting, instead allowed to get hurt.

He had authorised the mission. He had given him permission. It was his fault that he was in the infirmary, just inches away from death. It had to be, because who else was there to blame? Alec should have covered him. They were nephilim, blessed with runic power meant to prevent these injuries, to protect them from the war on demonkind. Yet he had allowed him to get hurt.

He had just passed his weapons training, so excited for his first mission, and he almost died. 

Alec succinctly rains a series of punches down onto the punching bag, each one more punishing than the last, ripping a new gash into the skin of his knuckles, beads of blood spattered onto the leather, red on brown. Bruising and powerful in his quest, Alec hits the punching bag with more force, each punch not enough, not  _ enough  _ to quieten the storm. He notices that sticky tears are blazing down his face, his only conscious movement to stop it, the clenching of his jaw. The wedding band snuggled tightly on his finger aches pointedly with every attack. 

He ignores it. 

They had to call Magnus when it became evident that  _ iratzes _ couldn’t do the job, each one only sinking into the tan skin of his wounded charge to no avail. Gasping breaths permeated the air in that alleyway; Alec barely registered Magnus next to him, sinking emerald green healing magic slowly knitting external wounds back together. All Alec could do was just watch, useless. 

Alec remembered the patrol rushing back into the Institute, clearing the way for the infirmary. He remembers Magnus’ hand on his shoulder, he remembers brushing it away to speak to the healers. Magnus had been shocked at his actions, Alec knew that this version of himself hadn't seen the light of day since the darkest days of the mortal war. 

Which leads Alec to the training room, steeped in his own guilt, his pressures. He allows himself to get lost in the rhythm of fighting, each punch to the bag a release, too much, the pain coursing through every vein, every nerve and yet not being _ enough.  _ His body cries out for him to stop, the pain blooming furiously in his hands. 

He doesn’t listen. 

Alec stumbles away from the punching bag, the consistent pain subsides for just a minute, panting hard as he fights through his tears. 

No one sees him like this. He refuses to let them. It's only here, in the solitude of the training room at the New York Institute that he truly allows himself to feel. To let go of the weakness, to just be. 

He shakes off his hands, little droplets of blood landing on the mats in his peripheral and it’s only then that he allows himself to observe the damage done.

His usually pale complexion is decorated in darkening bruises, the skin is flushed red. There are tears in his skin where blood seeps out, parts of his nails are bleeding, the sides of his thumbs are covered in black bruises. His eyes are sticky, but he shuts them anyway, fearing that he’s going to pass out from sensory overload. 

The darkness is calming, though his breathing is shaky, shuddering on the exhale. He takes this moment with himself and his insecurities, and breathes. 

He was a liability today. He won’t be again.

What Alec doesn't notice, as he basks in the  _ peace  _ that the silence brings him: the door to the training room opening. He’s too consumed with his pain drowning his senses. To him, this is repentance. This is putting the scales in order. A life for a life, pain for pain. 

Soft, deliberate hands on his shoulders jolt him out of his haze very forcefully into reality. He blinks the rest of his haze from his eyes as slitted golden cat eyes come into view, ridden with concern. 

He's done it  _ again.  _

There are a few things he realises once he's fully brought back into reality. He's still bleeding, the bruises on his torso haven't healed, Magnus has taken him over to sit on the bench. 

Away from the safety, the distraction that the punching bag brings (he knows, he  _ knows _ ) Alec's laid bare. He's more on edge, more fearful here, where he's forced to lay out his worst insecurities than he is in the heat of battle. The world wears away to nothing but his bow and the demon. It's a mission he could complete over again with his eyes shut. Here, it's just Alec. Broken. Shameful. A freak. 

At this point, he half expects Magnus to drop his ring to the ground and call it quits. Alec gets it. His own ring glints at him treacherously, a reminder of what he destroys every time he does  _ this _ . He's trembling slightly and Magnus seems to notice, placing a hand on his shoulder. It's just short of holding him down, but it's grounding.

Silence settles uncomfortably around them. Alec is surprised every time Magnus puts up with him. He wants to tell him everything he's thought of himself. That he's disgusting, a disgrace, that he's unlovable, undeserving. Unworthy, a failure. That he wants to break himself over and over again until he fades away. 

But he can't bring himself to voice them, to fight a taxing battle and  _ lose  _ against his insecurities everytime they rear their ugly heads. Instead both men remain silent. Alec doesn't know if he's ever felt so alone, but the worst thing is, he knows he’s not. His husband is sitting there,  _ right  _ next to him, and Alec can’t so much as whisper. Magnus doesn’t deserve him, this mess, Alec knows that he deserves to hurt for the pain he caused. So he gets up, wincing slightly, and pads his way back over to the punching bag.  He can  _ feel  _ the shrill alarm of fear and panic that runs through Magnus, as he jumps up at the speed of light, placing himself between Alec and the punching bag.

Alec can't bring himself to meet Magnus' eye, so he stares down at the floor, "Move out of the way, Magnus."

"And why ever would I do that?" Magnus challenges, placing two fingers gently underneath Alec's chin forcing his eyes meet Magnus' and he's met with the aching concern in them, doesn’t want to accept the meaning of it. That someone could  _ care.  _

"Magnus…" Alec protests weakly, but he knows he's already lost; he rips his gaze from Magnus, it's too overwhelming. Magnus’s soft footsteps inch impossibly closer to him, and Alec can’t let him in, can’t let him see the damaged person that he married. 

"You're hurting, Alexander, let me heal you,” Magnus says, softer now as he allows worry to colour his tone. 

But Alec can't. He doesn't deserve it. He shouldn't be allowed to  _ have _ . 

“I’m fine, Magnus. You’re depleted, go home, rest,” Alec grits out, turning his back to Magnus. He can’t see the damage. Whatever he says clearly offends Magnus because Magnus is right behind him now, gentle and tentative and  _ how does he have so much patience?  _ What did Alec do to deserve this man? What about him is so special that he deserves to be loved by this man? He almost murdered one of the shadowhunters under his charge tonight. He doesn’t deserve this. 

“If you honestly think that I would be able to rest while you are in such obvious pain, then you really don’t know me at all, Alexander,” Magnus’ voice is soft, laced with obvious concern for him. He knows that Magnus doesn't intend to use the words to attack him (his concern is obvious), yet it’s the toughest blow he’s taken all night. Amplifies the pain tenfold, and Alec doesn’t know if he wants it to burn more or if he wants it to relent.

Of course Alec knows Magnus, he knows Magnus better than himself. He has years of dedication to the silent study of the stunning enigma that he wakes up to every morning, until he knows Magnus as deeply as he can and further still. Those messy black waves brushed out of Magnus’ eyes with gentle fingers at the crack of dawn, Magnus’ face bare and relaxed with sleep and painted in golden light. He loves him at his lowest and he loves him when he soars. 

Of course, that doesn’t make it any different with Magnus. 

Alec’s still too stubborn to allow himself any help when Magnus doesn’t understand that he deserves none.

“M’not in pain. I need this. Go,” Alec bites out, his voice rough and gravelly and he suffocates under the pressure of his own guilt. It makes his voice breathless and laced with emotion that he can’t let Magnus see. The words jolt Magnus, they’re clearly not what he was expecting and Magnus goes completely still behind him, almost fading into the air and Alec thinks this is it. He’s hammered the last nail into the coffin. Now he’s free to drown himself in the pain and sorrow and conceal it all behind furrowed brows and a stoic expression. Now Magnus is free to live his life without Alec restraining him. 

Then there’s a feather light feeling skirting down the side of his arm, the barest of touches. Alec flinches at first, but slowly gives in to the calming pressure, still shaking minutely. Why is Magnus so patient with him?  _ How _ is Magnus so patient with  _ him _ ? The soothing touch continues consistently and Alec  _ swears _ he never used to be this touch starved. 

“I’m not leaving you, Alexander. I’m never leaving you,” Magnus whispers into the space around them, gradually turning Alec in his arms and Alec goes easily. His resolve dissipates into the air around them. To fight and fight and fight and for what? To hurt? To lose the  _ best thing  _ that had ever happened to him.

“Magnus...you can’t want this,” Alec whispers, berating,  _ can’t want me  _ goes unsaid between them, but the words ring out louder than anything spoken. “I’m broken. There’s something wrong with me,” Alec says the words as if they’re forbidden. A weakness that cannot be allowed within the walls of this Institute, a feeling Alec has to wrap up tight and suppress as far down as possible. 

“Oh,  _ sayang… _ ” Magnus laments softly, running a ringed hand over the curve of Alec’s cheek. Alec tries his best to lose himself to the simple sensation of this touch, soft and doting and all things that Alec never thought he would deserve. 

There are few occasions in which Alec has rendered Magnus speechless; he’s surprised that this is one of them. He’s bundled carefully into Magnus’ arms as if his body is something breakable, fragile. It’s the opposite, it’s his mind that’s broken. 

And yet. 

He’s handled with the utmost care and love that it’s almost overwhelming, it floods his system until there’s nothing left but to feel. Pain, sorrow, anger. His guilt, his agony. The room feels like it’s caving in, Alec feels like he’s floating, only tethered to this plane by Magnus’ touch. That if he lets go, he’ll be lost forever. 

“Magnus,” he chokes out, gasping for breath and thankfully, Magnus seems to catch on immediately. He’s lost his footing and he's falling, falling,  _ falling.  _

“Home, Alexander...let’s go home,” Magnus mumbles into his shoulder and the burnt sugar smell of a portal fills the air; they’re whipped away. 

  
  


When they step out of the portal, Alec is immersed in the feelings of warmth and safety and home and it all feels so wrong, like escaping to a fantasy just to keep the monsters at bay. By force of habit, both men make their way to the bedroom, Alec remaining motionless in the doorway. It’s not intentional, but his strength is wearing down and he can’t bring himself to move any further. His charge’s face flickers through his mind again. 

Except this time he decides not to send himself into a spiral of self-hatred and focuses solely on the task of filling his lungs before expelling the air. In and out. In and out. In and out. For someone so tall, Alec feels incredibly small. He curls his injured arms around himself almost protecting himself. Now that they’re in the sanctity of the loft, Alec wonders what’s going to happen next, the uncertainty just becomes another thing that weighs heavily on his mind.

“He’s alright, you know. We got the venom out in time. He’s in healing,” Magnus murmurs, sitting down on the edge of the bed, tilting his head up to look at Alec. 

It sends an ebbing wave of relief through him, but it’s not enough to curb the tide of his own agony. His own injuries burn abashedly on the outside, a storm rages internally and he doesn’t know how to separate the two. He realises, he’d never learned the difference between the two. Failure and punishment had always gone hand in hand for most of his life and when it comes to identifying the two...

There's a disconnect. 

Alec hums a gruff affirmative and they stay silent for a moment longer. In the corner of his eye he notices Magnus wringing his hands together, before moving to play with his ear cuff, his own nervous ticks. Alec hates that he’s the one who did this to Magnus, that he’s the cause of this. 

“‘M gonna be fine, y’know. You don’t have to worry about me,” Alec mumbles, expelling the words as if his pain is so abhorrent that he shouldn’t have to say them at all. They’re so quiet that he thinks Magnus doesn’t hear it. He hopes that he doesn’t. 

He does. 

Something visually bubbles up in Magnus, Alec can’t tell whether it’s concern or anger and just continues to stare at Magnus incredulously. 

“Alexander, of  _ course  _ I worry about you!” Magnus exclaims vehemently. “Do you honestly think yourself so undeserving, so damaged that someone could not care for you?! Could not love you? That  _ I  _ could not care for you.”

The last sentence is a statement more than a question, Magnus scoffs lightly in concerned disbelief. Alec finally forces himself to meet his husband’s gaze.  _ His husband.  _ Gold-green slitted pupils meet his own, bleeding with concern for him, for Alec. And no matter how many times he does it, Magnus never falters on how much he loves Alec, his devotion, his fierce tenderness. 

Somehow, despite all the other injuries Alec had sustained, that’s what does him. It snaps the tension that’s been building within him since the alleyway, breaking the fortifying walls that have been holding his tears back all night. They sting behind his eyes, and he refuses to let them fall, have his body betray him like this because he _ is fine.  _

_ He is not fine.  _

Because Alec’s been blind in his own self-sacrificing quest for repentance, constantly oblivious to just how many people can see him, can love him, can need him. It’s not always burn and be burnt when other people are standing close to the flame.  _ With him.  _

He’s shaking violently now, the doorframe barely holding up his quivering form and Magnus rises to move him to the bed. Alec does, reluctantly. 

“I cannot bear to see you in pain,” Magnus whispers into the space around them. There’s such unfailing honesty in the words and it grips Alec harshly, almost to the point that it hurts. “I cannot bear to watch you undo yourself with your guilt. I cannot bear to see you suffer.” 

There’s not much left for Alec to hide now; the tears are falling silently from his eyes, and the final reserves of his self-preservation are drained. 

“It was my fault,” he croaks out, his voice breaking. 

Magnus seems taken aback by the statement, almost confused for a moment, before he locks eyes with Alec. It’s compelling, and Alec can’t bring himself to look away, not with the power of the admission he’s just made. Or with everything that leads them to this bedroom, with Alec’s cards laid out bare for all to see. 

“Alexander, you could not possibly think that this is your fault,” Magnus breathes in disbelief, eyeing him for a moment before he realises that  _ he does.  _ Alec watches the moment that Magnus realises, his eyes widen, golden cat eyes flash surprised at him. Alec tears his gaze away from Magnus in shame, unable to face him. Magnus gains a tight grip on his shoulders and turns him back around. 

“Alec, this is  _ not  _ your fault.”

“I almost killed him.” Alec counters brokenly. 

“The  _ demon  _ almost killed him. Alec, you did your job.” Magnus offers. Alec doesn’t take. He never can _take_. 

“I deserved it,” Alec says firmly, “Look, he’s fine now, we can put it to bed,” Magnus looks almost offended. 

“Alexander, you beat yourself bloody because a mission went sideways. We  _ cannot  _ put this to bed,” Then Magnus gets up and strolls out of the room, into the main room of the loft. It takes a moment, but Alec follows. 

“What do you mean?” he bites out. 

“If you don’t know what I mean, then that’s already part of the problem,” Magnus states. Of course, Alec knows what he means but that doesn’t make him any less confused. 

“I failed him, Magnus. I couldn’t let that slide. I deserved it, I needed it,” Alec hushes, closing his eyes to try and fight the wave of emotion currently battling its way to the surface. But he has to be stronger.

“Oh, Alexander…” Magnus gasps remorsefully and Alec realises that Magnus looks as if he’s on the edge of tears, “you don’t deserve any kind of pain. Not a single ounce of it.”

Alec disagrees. 

“I was just making it balanced.” 

“They really did a number on you, didn’t they?” Magnus’ voice drips with clear concern for Alec, yet he looks like he wants to rain down fire on the Clave, but not for his own cause, his own race. For  _ Alec _ . For  _ him _ .

There’s a magnetic pull between them and Alec yearns for the touch, but not yet. He’s lived his entire life like this, this push and pull between his mother and the Clave. Always a punishment for failure, yet Magnus doesn’t look like he wants to punish him. He just looks concerned and worried, and it pulls at Alec’s heartstrings in the worst of ways. 

Because no-one's ever looked at him like that before.

Izzy and Jace rarely hear of Alec’s escapes into the training room, and when they do it’s always cold anger and the Clave and fierce concern for their brother. 

Magnus never looks at Alec like he pities him, doesn’t look at Alec like he’s the broken cause that he has stubbornly convinced himself that he is. 

He just loves him.

“I don’t deserve this. Don’t deserve you,” Alec whispers. Magnus’ forehead is pressed against his temple in a second, so quickly within his space that Alec barely registers the move. 

“Oh, my darling. You deserve so much more than me, you deserve the worlds. All I can offer you is myself, just let me love you, Alexander,”  _ Let me care,  _ goes unsaid.  _ Let me in.  _ Magnus imbues his voice with every thread of emotion within him, and gives to Alec. Always giving.

Alec wants to tell him, that he’s wrong, but he can’t wrench the words from his throat.

“You don’t have to hurt yourself,  _ sayang _ ,” Magnus whispers, the endearment tickles Alec’s face, his wedding ring a cold grounding pressure on his cheek.  _ I don’t want you to _ .

“Let me heal you, Alexander, please,” Magnus asks, but before either of them know it, there are tendrils of cerulean blue magic coiling around Alec’s wrists and his torso. Magnus’ magic has been crackling through the air for a while now, almost inching out for Alec’s injuries. It knits the skin back together, and bruises fade. But there’s still more they need to unpack.

“Magnus...” Alec protests, but there’s no heat behind it, he knows they’ll talk about this. It’s inevitable with Magnus. He knows every inch of Alec, knows exactly how to undo each and every one of those walls, hidden behind a furrowed brow or a pursed lip. Magnus knows exactly how to get him to open up, to feel, just as Alec knows how to with Magnus. It’s a habit that’s been built firmly within him, given a root and allowed to grow, to fester until Alec finds himself in that training room with bloody hands and teary eyes. 

But this time, he has Magnus. This time, he might heal. This time, this time he  _ wants  _ to try. He has people that wants to be better for.

He’s not there yet, but he’ll try.

***

  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  



End file.
